Chapter 6

The Poetics of Sublime and the Transcendental Self in

The Gita The Sublime in Ancient Philosophy

The first known study of the sublime is ascribed to Longinus’

Peri Hupsous/Hypsous or ‘On the Sublime.’1 This is thought to have

been written in the 1st century AD though its origin and authorship

are uncertain. For Longinus, the sublime is an adjective that

describes great, elevated, or lofty thought or language, particularly

in the context of rhetoric. As such, the sublime inspires awe and

veneration, with greater persuasive powers. This treatise was

rediscovered in the sixteenth century, and its subsequent impact on

aesthetics is usually attributed to its translation into French by

Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux done in 1674. Later the treatise was

translated into English by John Pultney in 1680, Leonard Welsted in

1712, and William Smith in 1739 whose translation had its fifth

edition in 1800.2

Eighteenth Century

The development of the concept of the sublime as an aesthetic

quality in nature distinct from beauty was first brought into

prominence in the eighteenth century in the writings of Anthony

Ashley Cooper, the third earl of Shaftesbury, John Dennis later

wrote, in expressing an appreciation of the fearful and irregular

forms of external nature and Joseph Addison's synthesis of concepts

of the sublime in his “The Spectator”, and later the “Pleasures of

the Imagination” were the next contributions. All of them had,

within the span of several years, made the journey across the Alps

and commented in their writings of the horrors and harmony of the

experience, expressing a contrast of aesthetic qualities.3

John Dennis was the first to publish his comments in a journal

letter published as “Miscellanies” in 1693. It gives an account of

crossing the Alps where, contrary to his prior feelings for the beauty

of nature as a "delight that is consistent with reason", the

experience of the journey was at once a pleasure to the eye as

music is to the ear, but "mingled with horrors, and sometimes

almost with despair."4

Joseph Addison embarked on the grand Tour in 1699 and

commented in that "The Alps fill the mind with an agreeable kind of

horror."5 The significance of Addison's concept of the sublime is that

the three pleasures of the imagination that he identified; greatness,

uncommonness, and beauty, "arise from visible objects" (sight

rather than rhetoric). It is also notable that in writing on the

"Sublime in external Nature", he does not use the term "sublime",

but uses terms that would be considered as absolute superlatives,

e.g. "unbounded", "unlimited", as well as "spacious", "greatness",

and on occasion terms denoting excess. Addison’s notion of

greatness was integral to the concept of the sublime.

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke's concept of the sublime was developed in “A

Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and

Beautiful.”6 Burke was the first philosopher to argue that the

sublime and the beautiful are mutually exclusive. The dichotomy is

not as simple as Dennis' opposition, but antithetical to the same

degree as light and darkness. Beauty may be accentuated by light,

but either intense light or darkness (the absence of light) is sublime

to the degree that it can obliterate the sight of an object. The

imagination is moved to awe and instilled with a degree of horror by

what is "dark, uncertain, and confused." While the relationship of

the sublime and the beautiful is one of mutual exclusiveness, either

one of them can produce pleasure. The sublime may inspire horror,

but one receives pleasure in knowing that the perception is a

fiction.

Burke's concept of the sublime was an antithetical contrast to

the classical notion of the aesthetic quality of beauty as the

pleasurable experience described by Plato in several of his

dialogues and suggested ugliness as an aesthetic quality in its

capacity to instil feelings of intense emotion, ultimately creating a

pleasurable experience. Beauty was, for St. Augustine, the

consequence of the benevolence and goodness of God's creation

and as a category had no opposite. The ugly, lacking any attributive

value, was formlessness in its absence of beauty.

Burke's treatise is also notable for focusing on the

physiological effects for the sublime, in particular the dual

emotional quality of fear and attraction noted by other writers.

Burke describes the sensation attributed to the sublime as a

'negative pain' which he called delight, and which is distinct from

positive pleasure. Delight is taken to result from the removal of pain

(caused by confronting the sublime object) and is supposedly more

intense than positive pleasure. Though Burke's explanations for the

physiological effects of the sublime experience (such as tension

resulting from eye strain) were not taken seriously by later writers,

his empiricist method of reporting from his own psychological

experience was more influential, especially in contrast to Kant's

analysis. Burke is also distinguished from Kant in his emphasis on

the subject's realization of his physical limitations rather than any

supposed sense of moral or spiritual transcendence.7

Immanuel Kant and the Concept of Sublime

In his Critique of Judgment, Kant investigates the sublime

stating, "We call that sublime which is absolutely great". He

distinguishes between the "remarkable differences" of the Beautiful

and the Sublime, noting that beauty "is connected with the form of

the object", having "boundaries", while the sublime "is to be found

in a formless object", represented by a "boundlessness". Kant then

further divides the sublime into the mathematical and the

dynamical, where in the mathematical "aesthetical comprehension"

is not a consciousness of a mere greater unit, but the notion of

absolute greatness not inhibited with ideas of limitations. The

dynamically sublime is "nature considered in an aesthetic judgment

as might that has no dominion over us", and an object can create

fearfulness "without being afraid of it.” He considers both the

beautiful and the sublime as "indefinite" concepts, but where

beauty relates to the "Understanding", sublime is a concept

belonging to "Reason", and "shows a faculty of the mind surpassing

every standard of Sense”. For Kant, one's inability to grasp the

enormity of a sublime event such as an earthquake demonstrates

inadequacy of one's sensibility and imagination. Simultaneously,

one's ability to merely identify such an event as singular and whole

indicates the superiority of one's cognitive, supersensible powers.

Ultimately, it is this "supersensible substratum," underlying both

nature and thought, on which true sublimity is located.8

Schopenhauer and the Concept of Sublime

According to Schopenhauer, the feeling of a beautiful object is

pleasure in simply seeing a benign object. The feeling of the

sublime, however, is pleasure in seeing an overpowering or vast

malignant object of great magnitude, one that could destroy the

observer. In order to clarify the concept of the feeling of the

sublime, Schopenhauer listed examples of its transition from the

beautiful to the most sublime as follows:

A) Feeling of Beauty– It is the experience of light reflected off a

flower. In this experience there is pleasure from a mere perception

of an object that cannot hurt the observer.

B) Weakest Feeling of Sublime– this experience can be

compared to seeing light reflected off stones. This experience gives

pleasure from beholding objects that pose no threat, yet they are

devoid of life.

C) Weaker Feeling of Sublime– This experience can be described

as the sight of an endless desert with no movement. It is rather a

detached kind of pleasure from seeing objects that could not

sustain the life of the observer.

D) Sublime– There is sublime experience in turbulent nature. It is

pleasure from perceiving objects that threaten to hurt or destroy

the observer.

E) Full Feeling of Sublime– Then there is an overpowering

turbulent nature. This experience gives pleasure in beholding very

violent, destructive objects.

F) Fullest Feeling of Sublime– This feeling is one that transcends

the worldly pleasures. It is like experiencing the immensity of the

extent and the duration of the universe. This gives the observer the

pleasure of the knowledge of his own nothingness and oneness with

Nature.9

Post Romantic and Twentieth Century

The experience of the sublime involves a self-forgetfulness

where personal fear is replaced by a sense of well-being and

security when confronted with an object exhibiting superior might,

and is similar to the experience of the tragic. The tragic

consciousness is the capacity to gain an exalted state of

consciousness from the realization of the unavoidable suffering

destined for all men and that there are oppositions in life that can

never be resolved, most notably that of the "forgiving generosity of

deity" subsumed under "inexorable fate”. Thomas Weiskel re-

examined Kant's aesthetics and the Romantic conception of the

sublime through the prism of ‘semiotic theory’ and psychoanalysis.

He argued that Kant's 'mathematical' sublime' could be seen in

semiotic terms as the presence of an excess of signifiers, a

monotonous infinity threatening to dissolve all oppositions and

distinctions. The 'dynamic sublime', on the other hand, was an

excess of signifieds. Here ‘meaning’ was always over determined.10

According to Jean-François Lyotard, the sublime, as a theme in

aesthetics, was the founding move of the Modern period. Lyotard

argued that the modernists attempted to replace the beautiful with

the release of the perceiver from the constraints of the human

condition. For him, the significance of sublime's is in the way it

points to an ‘aporia’ in human reason. It expresses the edge of our

conceptual powers and reveals the multiplicity and instability of the

Postmodern world.11

There has also been some resurgence of interest in the

sublime in Analytic Philosophy in the last 15 years as in the

Postmodern or critical theory tradition. Analytic philosophical

studies often begin with accounts of Kant or other philosophers of

the 18th or early 19th centuries.

Poetics of Sublime in the Study of The Bhagavad Gita

This section deals with the central idea of Postmodernism-

‘poetics of sublime and its application in the study of The Bhagavad

Gita in The Mahabharata. According to Lyotard, there is space, an

‘outside’, or ‘real’ which is not dependent upon any constructions.

This space will remain sublime.12 This idea is an affirmation of the

Kantian idea of sublime as the ultimate incommensurability of

reality as a pure idea. Kant divides the human mind into three

faculties: understanding, reason and judgment. They are the priory

laws of understanding which determine the experience of the

world.13 In other words all knowledge is determined by the

concepts. These concepts are applied to the sensory world through

the imagination in its capacity to form images. The highest faculty

of the mind is reason and idea is a product of this faculty. The

sublime is connected to the sphere of pure ideas. Sublimity is the

experience of an object which invokes an idea of reason which is

radically indeterminate. One can not formulate, know or judge it. In

short, imagination can excite ideas that cannot be realized or

represented in any sensory form. The sublime transcends all the

faculties of reason and it is a glimpse of the inaccessible plenitude

that leaves an impossible self-conscious wrestle with words in the

hopeless struggle to embody it. Postmodernism in art or Philosophy

asserts the unpresentable in presentation itself. Therefore,

Postmodern art exists as a radical subjective fictionality that refuses

mimesis, organic unity and consensus. It offers multiple

perspectives that refuse to resolve into some transcendent or more

profound whole.

Postmodernism admits a notion of the value of the aesthetic as

a form of non-utilitarian autonomy. It is resistant to any form of

conceptualization and is, therefore, unrepresentable, it is a form of

the Kantian realm of pure reason. The art of the sublime remain in a

sphere resistant to conceptual understanding. To experience the

sublime is to recognize the inadequacy of the values produced in

conceptual thought or experienced through sensory modes. It is

acknowledgement of the existence of that which can not be

thought, analyzed, presented through any determinate form.

Postmodernism is a form of resistance to the banal and

automatising effects of modern life. Any attempt to realize the

sublime as a blue print for political or historical action would

dangerously conflate the different language games, the spheres of

the speculative or ideal and those of the cognitive and practical.

Existence may be aestheticised, but the aesthetics must not be

used to underpin political ideologies which set out to produce new

cultures through rationalized ideal frameworks. The language

games of aesthetics are valuable as models of disagreements

motivating the reader with a desire to go beyond the analytic and

the conceptual, offering a continuing sense of the ‘as if’. Here the

sublime remains a never to be realized beyond.

The sublime has many dimensions, not only aesthetic but also

ethical, philosophical, psychological, political, linguistic, rhetorical

and sociological. The sublime may also induce the readers to think

specifically about the political motives of actions.

The idea is that there is a mysterious affinity between

abstraction and the sublime. Words have some advantages. They

bear emotional associations and they can evoke what is spiritual

without referring to what is visible. One can, by using words, create

combinations impossible to make in some other way. Art inspired by

the aesthetics of sublime, and aiming at powerful effects, can and

must neglect imitation of beautiful models and should devote

themselves to combinations that are astonishing, unusual and

shocking.

According to Kant, the principal effect of the sublime might be

rendered as a negative sign of inadequacy of imaginative power in

relation to the ideas of reason. Something is presented in a subject

which is ultimately unpresentable, though conceptually understood.

Lyotard is spellbound by the formula-‘presenting the unpresentable’

and by the idea of negative presentation. According to him in

painting artists want to make clear that there is something

conceivable that is absolutely not to be seen and not to be made

visible. He ponders over how it is possible to make visible that

which is impossible to see and answers the question by referring to

Kant who talks about ‘formlessness’ as a possible indication of the

unpresentable. According to Lyotard, Kant discusses abstraction

when describing imagination experiencing infinity. Infinity is a

negative presentation. Following Kant’s view that experience of the

sublime is the result of a subjective encounter with something

which is absolutely great that one can theoretically reflect on the

linguistic means which can be used by a subject who wants either

to express the sublime or to evoke the sublime in a receiver. The

subject is confronted with an overwhelming feeling.

The most basic way of representing the sublime is in

representing sublime objects. The linguistic way of representing the

sublime signals a desire to represent something and is an avowal of

the failure of language. The sublime allows the readers to correlate

miscellaneous linguistic phenomena and perceives them in a new

light.

The sublime is not a genre. It is a fluid movement across

generic boundaries. Nevertheless, the sublime has an effective

structure and rhetoric. So it might be thought of as an extended

mode. The investigator tries to study The Gita in The Mahabharata

in the light of the idea of the sublime. Here words evoke the

spiritual by creating an atmosphere that is impossible to make in

some other way. Art inspired by the aesthetic of sublime creates

powerful effects by combinations which are astonishing, unusual

and shocking. In the Mahabharata, the concept of transcendental-

self or Atman serves as an example of presenting the unpresentable

in Postmodern terminology. Following Kant’s view that experience of

the sublime is a result of the subjective encounter with something

which is absolutely menacing. One can theoretically reflect on the

linguistic means that can be used by a subject who wants either to

express the sublime or to evoke the sublime in a receiver. Then he

is confronted with something absolutely great or absolutely

menacing and expressing an overwhelming feeling. Arjuna

confronts such a situation in the battlefield. He is placed in a

situation in which his whole way of life is challenged and the only

way out of this situation is to opt for a course of action based on the

strength of one’s intuitive perception of reasons to support them.

Arjuna encounters such an experience in the battlefield when he

beholds Krishna in his divine form. It is described in The

Mahabharata in the following words:

And Krishna stood transformed before his bhakta speaking

from many mouths, seeing with numberless eyes, carrying

countless weapons, wearing divine raiment and garlands,

heavenly perfumes, of endless visions and marvels irradiate,

boundless. His face was turned everywhere, the nebulae were

his ornaments. If a thousand suns rose together into the sky,

their light might approach the splendour of that being.12

This gives Arjuna an absolutely overwhelming and menacing

feeling. In other words he experiences the sublime, the formless-

transcendental, imperishable which no words or form of art can

express.

The Sublime in Samkhya Yoga

Arjuna is confused about his choice to fight .his mental agony

and conflict of ideas is clear from his talks to Krishna. He says that

nothing on earth or heaven can cure him of his conflicts. The effect

of this sorrow on him is that it physically disables him. He is

numbed or dazed intellectually. Krishna tries to arouse Arjuna from

his inertia or lethargy. The verse 12 in Samkhya Yoga states, “Never

was there a time when I did not exist, or you, or these rulers of

men. Nor shall all of us cease to be hereafter.”13 It states that

existence is never non-existent, including the individual and the

whole humanity. Verse 16 in Samkhya Yoga says, “The unreal can

never come into existence, and the real can never cease to be. The

wise philosophers have known the truth about these categories (of

the real and the unreal).”14

The idea of existence is made clearer in this verse .The terms

‘bhava’ and ‘abhava’ (becoming and non-becoming) are used in the

Nyaya-Vaishesika Philosophy. In this system, the term ‘abhava’

(non-becoming) is the last of the seven ‘padarthas’. Even ‘sat’

existence (existence reality) is not different from the notion of

‘dravya’(substance),hence even the mind is a substance. Substance

in this context and meaning is considered –‘paramanu’(basic

building blocks of matter)Verse 20 of Samkhya Yoga states, “He

(this self) has neither birth nor death. Nor does he cease to be,

having been in existence before: unborn, eternal, permanent and

primeval, he is never killed when the body is killed.”15

The sublime self is never born and never dies. It is sublime, not

subject to any process of evolution. The sublime nature of the self is

spoken of as having no materiality, it has a transcendental

existence. Verse 25 of Samkhya Yoga states the nature of self,”

Knowing Him (self) to be unmanifest,inconceivable,and

unmodifiable,it is improper to mourn for him.”16 The eternal self is

beyond thought. The same idea is dealt in the Upanishads as the

fourth state-‘turiya’.

All forms of manifestations are real only in certain frames of

reference. Such realities are referred to as ‘Maya’ in the ‘Vedanta’.

The manifested is bounded on either side by the unmanifested, and

both ends dissolve into ‘Purusha’,(pure spirit).According to Sankhya

Philosophy the ‘Mulaprakriti’(root-nature avyakta) in the event of

death or dissolution the three stages of beginning, middle and end

merge without differentiation into the notion of ‘avyakta’

(ambiguity).

Karma Yoga- the Sublime Action

This chapter deals with the ‘karma yoga’ or sublime action.

‘karma’ and ‘yoga’ go naturally together. The sublime action in a

man who is able to restrain the self by the self is to be understood

as forces of life acting them out in him. What is necessary has to be

permitted, as breathing is necessary for a living organism. The more

fundamental the actions are, the less will be the choices left. Verse

4 in Karma Yoga states, “By non-performance of action a man does

not gain the state of spiritual passivity (or the state of egoless,

actionless called ‘naishkarmya’). By mere external abandonment

(samnyasa).He does not attain to perfection.”17

The term ‘naishkarmya’ does not mean a physical non-

performance of any action. It is a detachment of the mind in which

the mind itself ceases to be and one becomes one with the ‘atman’.

When the ego identifies itself with the body, he becomes an actor or

one who involves in works. In the egoless state one becomes a pure

witness. The two concepts dealt with in this section are; samnyasa

(renunciation) and ‘sidhi’ (attainment). We are familiar with ‘sidhies’

in the context of ‘yoga’ and samnysa in the context of rituals. The

central idea put forth in the verse is that one cannot have ends and

means separate. They are organically and unitively linked. It is a

state of the observer becoming the observed. Verse 5 in Karma

Yoga states, “No man can ever remain even for a moment without

performing any action. The impulses of nature deprive him of

freedom in this respect and compel him to act.”18 In this verse it is

clear in this verse that the motive drives for all actions are the

natural propensity (guna) of the person.

The Gita takes action in its most comprehensive sense here as

the binding of the entire humanity. ‘Karma’ or necessary actions

arise out of a situational need for action. Such action is even

deemed to be a form of worship. Therefore, Arjuna is called upon to

act in response to a situational necessity. Verse 8 in Karma Yoga

states, “Perform your prescribed duties. For, action is superior to

inaction. If you are totally inactive, even the survival of the body

would become impossible.”19 Here the necessity and inevitability of

action are made clear. In the first line action is said to be

‘jyayah’(superior) to inaction. The word ‘nityam’ refers to actions

where there is no option left. Even the body metabolism is a

function and therefore action. ‘Karma’ has to be understood in a

comprehensive sense in this chapter. Verses 42&43 in karma yoga

make the sublime nature of ‘karma’ clearer. It is written, “The

senses are great, they say. Superior to senses is the mind, and

superior even to the mind is the intellect. What is superior even to

the intellect is He, the Atman.”20 It is added, “Thus knowing Him

who is superior even to the Buddhi and controlling the lower self

with the higher, kill that tough enemy in the form of lust, O mighty-

armed Arjuna!”21

Here sublime action is acting in response to a situational

necessity, detached to both the means and ends. Communion with

the spirit purifies the intellect, mind and senses. It liberates the

senses from the dominance of its basic nature and gives an

impersonal point of view. Non-attachment is possible only when the

mind assumes the attitude a witness. This is possible only when

the mind can shed its basic natural tendency to see the world as an

object of instinctive satisfaction or sensual enjoyment. The

experience of the sublime action involves a self-forgetfulness where

personal fear is replaced by a sense of well-being and security when

confronted with an object exhibiting superior might, and the doer of

the action ceases to exist. There will be only the action, or a process

or a state where the observer and the observed merge into a

unified consciousness.

Jnana- Yoga as the Sublime Knowledge

This chapter deals with the elusive, subtle and sublime

knowledge. Time and duration are discussed here as the fourth

dimensional aspect of the subject of wisdom. Wisdom has a

dynamic nature here. It is notable that after discussing all the ritual

practices and social divisions in different chapters, it aptly

concludes that wisdom like fire burns all dross of action and rituals

in it. This chapter makes clear the concept of ‘samnyasa’ or

renunciation. The idea of renunciation is to be understood as life

lived with the insight of ‘yoga’ or unity of understanding and

wisdom as the perennial way of life. Verse 6 of Jnana yoga tells,

“Though birth less and deathless, and the lord of the all the beings

as well, yet I (the eternal Being) take birth by My inherent

mysterious power (Atma-mayaya) employing the pure or Sattva

aspect of My material Nature (Prakrit).”22 Manifestations of the

absolute are described here in terms of relativism. The ‘avatara’ of

the divine or coming into existence of the unmanifest into

existence, ’sambhavam’(becoming) is the subject matter discussed

here. The word ‘maya’ has reference to the ‘Vedanta’ which means

unreal, that is the world is unreal. ‘Prikriti’ (nature) is treated as a

co-partner in the principle of ‘maya’. Manifestation of the absolute

is like a transparent crystal placed on a red silk appears to be red,

though it is only in appearance.

The Gita is not concerned with social obligations but it is

concerned with the harmony between the inner and outer life of an

individual which is the yoga to lead a person to know the Sublime.

In verse 14 of Jnana yoga it is stated, “Actions do not affect Me. Nor

have any desire for the fruits of action. Whoever knows Me to be so,

is not bound by Karma.”23

This verse discusses the wisdom of the absolute or the

knowledge of the sublime. The subject matter of discussion is the

possible ways of activity open to a man who lives in the relativist

society. Here it is made clear that the sublime remains untouched

by all actions. There is no desire for any result of an action. It is in

understanding such neutrality that the way to understand the

absolute or the sublime is found. Here the action and doer of the

action are free from the bondage of action. Therefore, the sublime

knowledge liberates a man from all bondages.

A wise man always revalues his position in society because he

is constantly aware of the sublime. His life is full of wonder and

mystery .No text of the past has made it definite because it defies

all predictions and representations. A wise man is simply aware of

the knowledge of sublime. In verse 18 of Jnana Yoga Krishna says,

“He who sees work in ‘no work’ and ‘no work’ in work, he is

wise among men. Even while doing all work, he remains established

in Yoga.”24 This verse epitomises the sublime knowledge. There is

an obvious paradox in the verse. It is better to leave the paradox as

such because the sublime knowledge cannot be expressed logically

in language. It is the meeting ground of all paradoxes. Such

paradoxes can be understood only with the knowledge of the

sublime. The heightening of the mystery in The Gita enhances its

glory. Mystery is inevitable in a text dealing with the knowledge of

the sublime. It is only the wise who is clear about the non-duality

that understands the sublime.

In the present context, it is stated that there are ambivalent, I-

polar aspects to the soul of a man which are related as the instinct

with intelligence. What instinct is convinced of may not be

acceptable to intelligence. The soul or the absolute sublime is the

meeting place of opposites. Wisdom is the knowledge of the

sublime. The last phrase ‘Kritsnakarmakrit’ ( while still engaged in

all possible kinds of action) shows that one set of actions has to be

reduced in terms of the other and both cancelled out into a certain

unitive neutrality, irrespective of whatever actual or virtual

activities are implied in a situation. The doer of an action engages

himself in the action in such a way that he does not depend on

anything outside it. He is always a contented man, free from worries

and expectations. This idea is made clear in verse 21 of Jnana Yoga

Lord Krishna tells Arjuna, “One who is free from desires, whose mind

is well-controlled, and who is without any sense of ownership, incurs

no sin from works, as his actions are merely physical.”25 Here all

the actions in which a person engages physically are in a nature of

reflex actions. The phrases “yatachittatma” (one of subjugated

relational self), “chitta” in the verse are the aspect of consciousness

that is capable of attaching to an idea or object, and “aparigrahah”

(without possessiveness) denote two additional requisites for a man

of wisdom, giving a deeper qualification than just being free from

attachments.

Knowledge of the sublime or wisdom is said to be superior to

all other forms of sacrifice. All the sacrifices have their origin in

some sort of action. They are necessarily dualistic in that respect.

The knowledge of the sublime transcends such conditions.

Verse 33 of Jnana Yoga tells, “O scorcher of enemies sacrifice

involving knowledge is superior to sacrifice with material objects:

for, O son of partha, all works without exception culminate in

knowlegde.”26 A priest pours butter or burns valuable objects in a

Vedic sacrifice. The verse here categorically states that wisdom is

far more important than all such practices. The expression

‘parisamapyate’ (comes to a supreme culmination) gives primary

importance to wisdom or knowledge of the sublime. All actions are

finally burnt away or discarded by the unitive wisdom of the ‘yogi’.

This idea is made clearer in the verse 37 of Jnana Yoga. Arjuna

is told, “Just as well-kindled fire reduces a heap of fire-wood to

ashes, so does the fire of divine knowledge reduce all sins (works)

to ashes.”27 The relation between action and wisdom are not simply

mechanically opposite but when there is wisdom or the knowledge

of the sublime, action vanishes as darkness vanishes in the

presence of light. Then there is only the pure intelligence without

any duality.

Karma -Samnyasa-Yoga – the Poetics of Sublime

There are six systems in Indian Philosophy:

1) Nyaya-Vaiseshika(School of Philosophy that deals with life as a

bondage, suffering and liberation of the soul) 2) Samkhya-yoga

(One of the oldest systems of Indian Philosophy that maintains

clear-cut dualism between ‘purusha’ and ‘prakriti’)3) Purva

Mimamsa (School of Philosophy that regards The Veda as eternal

and authorless) 4) Uttara Mimamsa( The last part of the Vedas

which consists of the Upanishads).

There are two sides to each of the four systems; one side is

rational, while the other deals with practices. However, the final

doctrinal aspects which belong to The Vedanta are restated by

sages like Vyasa. There are opposing tendencies and altering

movement from orthodoxy to heterodoxy or from reason to faith in

the growth of the spiritual and philosophical thought of India.

‘Nyaya’ is rational, logical and orthodox in origin, while ‘Vaiseshika’

is heterodox and religious in origin. Samkhya is rational and

heterodox while Yoga is theistic and permits an ‘Isvara’ as an

alternative for its discipline. There is interplay of atheism and

theism between these two schools. ‘Purvamimamsa’ represents the

orthodoxy which is primarily concerned with ‘Vedic ‘rituals. The

‘Uttaramimamsa’ is neither heterodox nor orthodox as it is found in

‘the Gita’. The complete meaning of the wisdom or the poetics of

sublime in The Gita is one that the reader has to formulate for

himself. Verse 4 & 5 of chapter 5 in ‘Communion Through

Renunciation’ (the karma-samnyasa-yoga) it is stated, “It is only the

childish and not the wise that speak of samkhya (or knowledge

accompanied by abandonment of work) and Yoga (or communion

through detached and dedicated work) as different. A person well

established, even one of these, attains the end that is the common

goal of both (That is, in the means they employ, they look different,

but their end or ultimate purpose is identical).”28 It is added,“The

state which one attains by Samkhya, the same state is attained by

Yoga too. He, who sees both ‘samkhya’ and ‘yoga’ as one, sees

indeed.”29 This verse is an attempt to look upon pure and practical

aspects of life unitively. Here ‘samnyasa’ is not rejection of action

purposefully or wilfully but it is seeing action through inaction and

vice versa. There is a disowning of attachment in a doer of the

action. The Gita is emphatic about abolishing the distinction

between samkhya and yoga.

The self or Atma’ is pure, transparent and untainted. Lower

instinctive aspects of the self are transcended. The self has its

movements in a plane which is independent of the worldly mundane

activities. It is in this sense it says that the usual activities of the life

does not affect the self or ‘Atma’. Verses 8 &9 of karma-samnyasa-

yoga state, “I (the self) do naught: only the senses are occupied

with their objects –this should be the conviction of one who is

detached in action and established in the truth ( that he is the

Atman), even while seeing, hearing touching ,smelling, eating,

conversing, holding, walking, giving up, winking and even

sleeping.”30

These verses make clear the vital, automatic and reflex

functions which are incidental to physical existence. All such actions

take place on a plane of biological order involving no attachment or

identification. They are treated as incidental to social life in general

by a man of wisdom. In other words, a man of wisdom dissociates

himself and maintains detached neutrality.

The self is an active or passive non-agency. The self is

characterized by perfect neutrality. It is well expressed in the verses

14&15 of Karma-samnyasa-yoga, “In regard to all beings in this

world, the sovereign soul is not the cause of the sense of agency,

nor of actions, nor of the fruition of actions. It is nature that does all

this.”31 Lord Krishna adds, “The all-pervading Being does not accept

the sins or merits of any one. Knowledge of the Divine Spirit is

veiled in ignorance, and therefore, beings are duluded.”32 This verse

refers to the sublime as the supreme in the phrase ‘prabhu’

(supreme). A ‘yogi’ who is untouched by his mundane existence is

aware of the sublime. He is aware of the self or soul as the sublime

and this sublime is ‘vibhu’ (the pervading one). The sublime is

innocent and free from all limitations. There is a total ruling out of

all forms of attachments in action in the verse here, it is clear in the

line, “na karmaphalasmyogam”(non-attachment to actions)

emphasising the non-duality of the sublime.

Jnana-vijnana Yoga as the Poetics of Sublime

This chapter is an attempt to understand the absolute nature

of reality or the sublime not in terms of philosophy but through

intuition and contemplative synthesis. Contemplation is possible

from an identity of subject and object through intuition. Sublime is

revealed in its own light. There is a bi-polar relation between the

‘yogi’ and the absolute or sublime. Knowledge of the sublime results

from such a relationship which refers to the immanent and

transcendental, subjective and objective, pure and practical aspects

of reality at the same time.

Verse 5 of Jnana-vijnana Yoga tells, “This O mighty armed, is

My lower nature. Know that, as different from it, is My higher nature

forming the source of all Jivas and support of the whole universe.”33

The two aspects of the absolute or the sublime are referred to here

by the terms ‘apara’(immanent) and ‘para’ (transcendent). These

dual aspects are treated as the nature of the absolute unitively. The

phrase ‘dharyate’(sustains) derive from the same root ‘dharma’ but

it does not suggest physical support of the world by the absolute,

but it is the principle of existence or life force running through the

phenomenal world.

Raja-Vidya Raja-Guhya Yoga as the Poetics of Sublime

The nature of the subject matter of this chapter is clear from

the title itself. It is made clear that the absolute or sublime is

detached to both good and bad alike. This neutrality is the highest

level of the sublime. The importance of knowing the absolute as the

sublime principle is made clear in this chapter.

Verse 4 of Raja-Vidya Raja-Guhya Yoga states, “All the

world is pervaded by Me, the Unmanifested Being. All objects

subsist in Me, but I in them.”34The sublime nature of the absolute is

brought out in this verse. It is insisted that the absolute is sublime

without form, it is unmanifest. It says that beings exist in the

absolute but the absolute does not exist in them. The relation

between absolute and existence is a wonder and mystery. This

sublime nature of the absolute is heightened in the next verse 5 of

Raja-Vidya Raja-Guhya Yoga,” And yet objects do not abide in Me!

Behold My mysterious Divine Power! Source and support of all

objects, and yet not abiding in (i.e. limited by) them!”35 Manifested

beings do not have existence in the absolute. The phrase

‘mamatma’ (self of the absolute) makes the relation subtler still, as

this self which is said to be the vital urge is the emanation of all

beings.

Kshetra-kshetrajna-Vibhaga Yoga as the Poetics of Sublime

This chapter is concerned with the most subtle aspect of the

sublime. Arjuna puts the question in three couples of concepts; one

concept is based on the idea of ‘prakriti(nature) and

‘purusha’(spirit),another pair is based on the concept of

‘kshetra’(the field) and the ‘kshetrajna’(knower of the field). The

third pair is subtler that is ‘jneyam’ (that which is to be known) and

‘jnanam’(knowledge or wisdom). It can be seen that concepts

belonging to different branches of knowledge are brought together

for highlighting the idea of the sublime.

Verse 1 of Kshetra-kshetrajna-Vibhaga Yoga states, “This body

O son of Kunti, is called the Kshetra, the field (because the fruits of

action are reaped in it). He who knows it (as his property) is the

Kshetrajna or the spirit who knows the field. So say those versed in

this subject.”36 The two definitions here, one of the field and the

other as the knower of the field are the different aspects of the self

or the sublime. The duality here is not to emphasize their distctness

but for the purpose of discussion. In the next verse, the field and

the knower of the field are treated unitively. In verse 2 of Kshetra-

kshetrajna-Vibhaga Yoga it is said, “Know Me, O scion of the Bharata

race, to be the Kshtrajna(the Spirit) in all Kshetras (bodies). The

knowledge of the distinction between Kshetra and Kshetrajna alone

is real knowledge according to me.”37

This verse highlights the nature of wisdom or sublime. Knowing

the sublime is to understand the relation between the field and

knower of the field. Lack of understanding this leads to many errors

of judgement. It is the field that evolves and not the knower of the

field. While the ‘samkhya’ philosophers thought of the field and the

knower of the field as separate, here it is presented as belonging to

one unified cetralised value. The knower of the field suggests unity

but when it is said that he is in every field, it may suggest

multiplicity. Thus, unity and multiplicity are counter poised, or set

against each other to cancel out both in favour of the absolute

sublime. The sublime is the only subject matter of wisdom.

The poetics of the sublime reaches its height in the verses 14,

15&16 of Kshetra-kshetrajna-Vibhaga Yoga. It says, “By His power

the faculties of the senses function, but sense organs He has none.

He is the support of all things, but they do not affect him. He

transcends Nature and its functions, but these constitute the

objects for His enjoyment.”38

The sublime is explained in paradoxical statements in this

verse. It says that it is in the senses but it does not have senses. It

is possible to experience the sense of sight in dreaming without the

use of sense organs. In the second instance, it says that it is

unattached but it supports all. The idea will be clear. The space is

understood as the supporter of all things to exist. The third paradox

is that it says that it has no qualities but perceives all qualities. This

idea becomes clear when it is understood that the absolute is

sublime. It has no modalities of nature called ‘gunas’. Arjuna is told,

“He is within and without all beings. Though unmoving, He looks like

one moving (because He is everywhere). He is both far and near- far

to the ignorant and near to the knowing ones. Owing to subtlety, He

cannot be known like gross objects.”39

Here again there are three paradoxes. The absolute is said to

be the sublime principle which can only be known but never

explained in language. Therefore it is said, “He (the Brahman)

whom aspirants seek to know, is the impartial whole, yet does He

seem to dwell in all beings as if divided into many. He is the

generator and supporter of all beings, and their destroyer too.”40

Here also the first paradox is the undivided becoming divided.

It suggests that all divisions are only in appearance. The second

paradox is between ‘bhutabhartri’(supporter of existence) and

‘jneyam’(what is to be known). The third pair of paradox is between

that which holds back and release for expansion. It is the centrifugal

and centripetal principle in science. All the examples in this verse

are meant to bring out the underlying idea of equalisation,

neutralisation and cancelling out of counterparts into the central

idea of the sublime.

The idea of the sublime is concluded in this chapter in verses-

31& 32 of Kshetra-kshetrajna-VibhagaYoga. Verse 31 is, “That

highest Self, being the immutable and unoriginated Spirit beyond

Nature, is free from all action and stain, though dwelling in the

body.”41 Verse 32 tells,” Just as the all-pervading Akasa, because of

its subtlety, is not stained by anything, so this Atman, though

abiding in all bodies, is never affected by any impurity.”42

Conclusion

The self or ‘I’ feeling of an individual is the individualised ‘I’

ness of egocentricity. It is a socially conditioned state and all

conditioned states are non-existent. Therefore, ego has no

existence. The ego and experience of it are founded on ignorance.

Most of the people are engaged in activities to obtain self-

gratification. A wise man realizes that the physical organism and

mind are integral parts of the phenomenal universe. Changing and

becoming are part of the universal system. A wise man will also

manifest these factors. He will act like any other person in the

worldly affairs, as it is a physical necessity of existence. A ‘yogi’

maintains an inner serenity even in the midst of such activities. He

will keep himself a neutral hero.

The self is equated with the meaning or value (‘ananda’) of

existence that operates within the wide field of consciousness

(‘chit’).It ranges from the infinitude of the unconscious to the

finitude of conscious awareness which is called the pure

consciousness (‘turiya’). In this quality of awareness no duality or

possibility of duality exists. The dichotomy of subjects and objects is

not present in it. In addition to that there is a vast area of subjective

awareness which includes the dream state. Finally, there is

awareness of the division between the known and knowledge.

Knowledge can be subtle or concrete. The concrete aspect refers to

the empirical experience of the physical world. Only when all of the

above aspects of consciousness are included in a unified notion of

the self, there is awareness of the self. One who experiences the

self as being comprised of the concrete, the subjective, the

unconscious and the transcendental has no difficulty to understand

that the concreteness of one’s own entity is one with the

concreteness of the physical universe. In the same way he is aware

that consciousness of the objective world and the meaning of the

cosmos are not different from the consciousness experienced within

his own personal self. This awareness is obtained only through

meditation to realize the non-differentiation between personal and

universal self. A wise man having this insight will be able to see all

actions as part of the flux of becoming which is natural to the

phenomenal aspect of the universal self.

In the process of becoming, there are various movements that

include contraction to a point, expansion into wide dimensions and

motion upwards, downward and horizontally. In all these natural

functions and their outcome, there is no agency that wills. The

varieties are constituted in such a way that physical and chemical

properties are produced without intervention of any personal will.

People attribute personification to natural events like the ‘sun

shine’. In fact it is the nature of the sun to shine. There is no ‘will’

that directs it. The sunshine and biological process belong to the

same order of physical events. Man is an integral part of the

universe.

The mind is capable of feeling, reasoning and willing. Feeling,

for example, is a response to an experience as pleasure or pain.

Mostly people seek pleasurable experiences and try to avoid pain.

Usually experiences are self-related. One says, “I am happy”, “I am

angry” and so on. In all cases, there is an unmistakable

identification with the ‘I’ consciousness. Therefore, almost all

transactions in life are structured and modified by three aspects of

the mind; feeling, reasoning and willing. The ‘I’ consciousness

assumes the role of an agency as the enjoyer, knower and actor but

the Gita says that such identifications are mistaken identities of the

self. The true self is pure consciousness. When consciousness is

mentioned, it does not suggest the awareness of knowing things,

people, events, or ideas. Knowledge is not supposedly available

without the dichotomy of the knower and the known. The Gita

rejects this view and suggests that all effects are the modulations of

the consciousness. Pure knowledge is a state of the observer

becoming the observed, when there is only observation without the

knower, knowledge and the known.

The self can be compared to the sky and the sun. The sky is

the universal concept of the void. The Budhist School of Nihilism

compares ‘nirvana’ (emancipation) to the great void of ‘sunyata’

(nothingness), it agrees with the non-qualitative

absolute-‘nirguna’(free from all attributes). It has no function. The

second analogy given is of the sun. The sun has no particular

motive. It simply radiates its effulgence. Yet so many things are

caused by the sheer presence of the sun, such as the motion of the

planets, the earth becoming hospitable, the solar energy getting

into various kinds of alchemy to life of all sorts on this planet. In the

same way in the mere presence of the self, many actions take place

but the self does not involve in them as the agent of the action.

According to the Gita a man of wisdom attains a state of

transcending all actions and the urge to act. In a state of

absorption, the witnessing consciousness has nothing to witness

except itself which is called ‘atmajnana’ (knowledge of self

realization).The pure existence of the self is seen manifested in and

as the existence of individual entities. Such entities come and go.

Differentiations of the undifferentiated may occur in time and space

and fade into the unknown.

In terms of pure duration, the existence of things is to be

treated as relative reality. Only the self has absolute existence. The

self is the source of all awareness and nothing can illuminate the

self that is not its own pure awareness. All items of awareness at

the individual level originate at a certain point in time within the

consciousness. They dissolve into the same consciousness after the

relative existence. The individual self awareness is relative, though

it may seem to be ones own. All individual entities of awareness are

illuminated by the absolute or sublime.

This introduces the readers to the holistic vision of total

awareness of the self. A clear understanding of thise will enable one

to discover the relevance of individualised existence. These forms

emerge as the result of individual notions that imply a number of

specific values. Such values range from joy, satisfaction, sense of

fulfilment or peace. There is a division of awareness of the self as

the unconditioned and conditioned.It is called

‘nirupadikam’(unconditional) and ‘sopadikam’(conditional)

respectively. When a man observes a pot and comments “this is a

pot”, the pot becomes a means (upadi) which modulates his

awareness into the specific features of it.

Therefore, the world is being and non-being together. Its

beingness belongs to pure knowledge and its non-beingness to

ignorance. In order to reach at the notion of the unconditioned self,

one has to be able to think of the immanence of a consciousness

that has the quality of transcendence. When the pure consciousness

is confined to a limit, it produces the central locus and a boundary.

The central locus produces the notion of individualisation and that

notion is recognized as the ‘I’ in the case of human beings.

Repeated recourse to such confinement and recurrence of the idea

of ‘I’ makes one egotistically oriented. Thereafter the ego alone

becomes real and the experience is considered valid only when it is

an affectation and expression of the ego. In other words, a person

becomes a conditioned consciousness and a stranger to the

unconditioned consciousness from which his individuation is

derived. In fact the unconditioned state of awareness is the reality

and it is always the present.

The self can be compared to a light that can see and is always

witnessing whatever it illuminates. Its experience of such

illumination ranges from the witnessing of empirical transactions

with gross objects in the wakeful state. In and all through

experiences runs a golden thread of pure consciousness. This is not

affected by the changing modes of consciousness that occur in the

shifting of interest from one item of experience to another.

Comprehension of this pure consciousness is obliterated in the

minds of most of the people because people are so much engrossed

by things illuminated by the self.

‘I’ consciousness in notions such as “I am happy”, the term ‘I’

stands for the ego. Although its epistemological status is that of the

non-self, the ego is neither the non-self nor the self. It is a negative

shadow of the self. Therefore consciousness neither refers to the

cognizing agency of the ego nor to any factor of the non-self made

specifically interesting by any particular value. Such a state may be

described as awareness of an awareness that does not necessitate

the dichotomy of the seer and the seen. The non-differentiated

consciousness of the self prevails at all times. It is like the ocean

that though seems to take many forms of waves never in fact

changes its fundamental nature as water. The non-differentiated

state of consciousness can be identified as self-realization by

recapturing. Intellectually the nature of the self can be said to mean

the pure existence that neither originates nor does cease to exist

over time. What one perceives through the action of the senses and

conceives by the action of the mind comes into existence at a

certain point in time. It follows that the existence of such

perceptions and conceptions are ,in terms of pure existence, things

of relative validity. Knowledge of the existence of such entities

originates from the stream of consciousness and vanishes after

presenting the idea of the objects. From the above it is evident that

most items of our consciousness are only relative notions and not

an ever-abiding awareness.

A wise man has an understanding of the transactions in the

world of objectivity. He is no less sharp in worldly affairs. He may

have a better sensibility to appreciate but he is cognizant of the fact

that it is only an ego dealing with non-self entities. Actual

knowledge is to see the rope as a rope. It is called ‘yatharthajnana’

(the real knowledge). It is the beingness of knowledge. It is not

necessary for a great teacher to come and inform that the right

knowledge is to see the rope as rope. Knowledge of the sublime is

calling one’s attention to what one misses in the endless pursuit of

details and precision in the empirical world of search. Knowledge of

the sublime enables the individual to transcend the empirical and

transactional those are the fixations in which it is riveted. This is the

most basic way of representing the sublime in language that

invokes the feeling of sublime in the reader. The sublime allows the

readers to correlate miscellaneous linguistic phenomena and

perceive them in a different light. But the most interesting aspect

of the sublime is the fact that it seems to embody a very particular

theory of language and a complete mode of relationships between

the participants in the process of communication. In this model of

language, notion such as identification, imagination, emotions, and

communication play the main role.

NOTES

1 Monroe C Beardsley, "History of Aesthetics". Encyclopaedia of

Philosophy. Vol. 1. (London: Macmillan, 1973.) 27.

2 - - - 30-32.

3 - - - 35-38.

4 - - - 39-41.

5 - - - 49.

6 - - - 53.

7 - - - 59.

8 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment. trans. J.H. Bernard

(London:Macmillan, 1951) 18- 32.

9 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation,

(Oxford: Clarendon, 1975)39.

10 Thomas Weiskel, The Romantic Sublime (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1976) 58.

11 Jean-François Lyotard, Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime,

trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg. (Stanford University Press, 1994)19.

12 20-22.

13 Swami Tapsyananda, Srimad Bagavad Gita,

(Madras : Sriramakrishna Math, 1984)46.

14 Tapsyananda,46.

15 Tapsyananda,47.

16 Tapsyananda, 49.

17 Tapsyananda, 51.

18 Tapsyananda, 87.

19 Tapsyananda,88.

20 Tapsyananda,89.

21 Tapsyananda,103.

22 Tapsyananda,103.

23 Tapsyananda, 119.

24 Tapsyananda,22.

25 Tapsyananda,124.

26 Tapsyananda,125.

27 Tapsyananda,130.

28 Tapsyananda, 132.

29 Tapsyananda,149.

30 Tapsyananda,149.

31 Tapsyananda,151.

32 Tapsyananda,153.

33 Tapsyananda,153.

34 Tapsyananda,195.

35 Tapsyananda,236.

36 Tapsyananda,237.

37 Tapsyananda,237.

38 Tapsyananda,337.

39 Tapsyananda,337.

40 Tapsyananda, 342.

41 Tapsyananda,343.

41 Tapsyananda,350.

42 Tapsyananda, 350.